Who's not a real state *now*?

I was born and grew up in Hawaii, and didn’t move to the mainland (what I guess other people call the “lower 48”, although that’s an absurd misnomer) until I was 19. Since moving away, I fairly often have to parry assertions that Hawaii is not a real state. The obvious answer is that of course we are, and the rest of the US needs us – otherwise they’d have an inelegant 98 senators and a horrendous 49-star flag to deal with. The obvious mathematical importance of the 50th state is still lost on plenty of people: of the 38% of Americans who doubted that President Obama was born in the US in 2009, fully 10 percentage points were aware he was born in Hawaii – 6 percentage points thought Hawaii was not in the United States and 4 points “weren’t sure”. That’s 10 in every 100 Americans doubting that there are 50 states in the US. Forget geography – let’s teach counting in schools.